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"FREEDOM IS ALWAYS WITHIN THE UNION." 

DESPOTISM FOLLOWS ITS DOWNFALL. 



SPEECH 



HOi H. L. DICKEY, 



DUTY OF OHIO IN THE PRESENT CRISIS 



TITE QUESTION BEING- UPON THE ADOPTION OF RESOLUTIONS ASKING 
CONGRESS TO CALL A CONVENTION OF THE STATES. 



DELIVERED IX THE 



/ 

OHIO HOUSE OF REPKE SENT ATI VES MARCH 20, 1S61. 



COLUMBUS : 

RICHARD NEVINS, PRINTER, 

1861. 



\ 



/i> 



-Sf^ 



^ 



Hall of the' House of Representatives,! 
"■iJolumbus, March 20, 1861. / 

Hon. H, L. Dickey: 

Sir: — The undersigned, Members of the House of Representatives, 'hav- 
ing listened with pleasure to your remarks upon the passage of Senate 
Joint Resolution No. 37, do respectfully ask a copy of the same for publi- 
cation. 

Yours truly, 



JAS. M. WHITE, 
W. B. WOODS, 
WILLIAM PARR, 
J. E. MYERS, 
W. J. FLAGG, 
GEO. S. CONVERSE 
C. HUGHES, 
PATRICK RODGERS, 
JOHN SCHIFF, 



JAS. M. STOUT, 
S. W. SHAW, 
JOHN WESTCOTT, 
R. HUTCHESON, 
T. K. JACOBS, 
J. E. CHASE, 
G W. ANDREWS, 
J. F. WRIGHT. 



SPEECH 



OP 



HON. HENRY L. DICKEY, 



DUTY OF OHIO IN THE PEESENT CRISIS. 



Mr. Speaker : It has been witli unfeigned anxiety, that 
the Democratic side of this House has urged the passage of 
these resolutions for weeks passed. We regarded an appeal 
to the people as the only hope of the Union, and so regard it 
still. And now, that we have seen secession put in operation, 
the Peace Conference prove a failure, Congress unequal to the 
emergency, and Lincoln inaugurated, there seems to be a hope 
that the people may have an opportunity of averting the sad 
condition of impending and continued dissolution. I shall not 
attempt to draw a picture of the horrors of disunion and civil 
war, for every American can feel better than I can portray the 
utter destitution and misery of such a condition — a stubborn, 
unwieldy fact, stares us in the face, and action, not imagining 
and portraying evils or blessings, is oar duty. 

We have a duty to perform, not only in relieving our imbe 
cile agents as far as we can, but in clearing our own skirts as 
a State, to which I shall presently direct my remarks. But 
now, while yet there is hope, let us, with one voice, ask a con- 
vention of States — let us call upon our sister States to ask it 
— let the honest, intelligent. Union-loving people consider the 
matter, and come together and accomplish that which politi- 
.cians can never do. 



Let those who have been deceived into the belief that there 
was no danger of dissolution, that free territory, free homes, 
and free farms should be theirs, without cost, when, in truth, 
under that delusion they have been led to occupy a position 
where their chances are to shoulder arms and bleach their bones 
upon the battle field in civil war, come together and strike 
hands with those of every other party and State in friendship 
and determined unity. 

Will any man say the people favor disunion ? Will any 
one say that the people will stop to weigh a mere party plat- 
form against the value and blessings of the Union ? Sir, the 
laboring man, the mechanic, the farmer, the merchant, all have 
a higher appreciation of the peace, the blessings and glory of 
the country than those in power, whose hearts have become 
callous by crimination and recrimination. 

Trust the intelligence and integrity of the people, and if it 
is not already too late, all will be saved; refuse this and all 
IS lost. 

Does it become the Legislature of Ohio to sit doggedly dumb, 
disreo-arding petition after petition that has been poured in 
upon us from the people ? We are bound to respond to these 
demands. We are by all that is honorable, bound to respect 
and comply with their prayers. 

But gentlemen say the Constitution is good enough — States 
have no right to secede. Grant it — the Constitution and the 
right of secession is not debatable now — it is too late for this 

the fact exists. States have already seceded, so far as in 

their power, and the whole South declare, in answer to the 
New York and Ohio Eesolutions, that they will resist force 
with force. 

Do you say they must be coerced, conquered and brought 
back at the point of the bayonet? Do you call this self-pres- 
ervation? I say it is self destruction — while concession and 
compromise is the spirit of the people, the spirit in which our 
fathers formed the government, and the only spirit in which 
it can be preserved. 

But, sir, the passage of these resolutions is not the only thing 
to be done by the State of Ohio. The question of slavery is 



undoubtedly the original source of our present tottering con- 
dition. The institution denounced as a moral, social and polit- 
ical evil, as it exists, is older than the government, and is so 
interwoven into our constitution and laws that, while it does 
exist, and the Union lasts, duties with regard to it are imposed 
and devolve upon every State, which none can disregard with- 
out dishonor to herself and disloyalty to the general govern- 
ment. Therefore, I remark, Ohio has more than the passage 
of these resolutions to perform, if she would do her whole duty 
to the country, and place herself right upon the record. 

And since there seems to be no formidable opposition to the 
final passage of these resolutioas, I shall confine my remarks 
principally to what I conceive to be the further duty of our 
State in regard to her laws. 

Unconstitutional laws should not remain upon our statute 
books in any event. No State should dare to encroach upon 
the delegated powers of the general government any more 
than should the general government dare to encroach upon 
the reserved rights of the States ; for it is the duty of the gen- 
eral government to respect and support the rights and author- 
ities of the States, as a part, and no inconsiderable part, of the 
machinery of this Eepublic, as well as it is the duty of the 
States to respectj regard and obey their constitutional obliga- 
tions to the general government. Both are eminently essen- 
tial to the welfare of the people, and the success of the system. 

Tiae Constitution was framed to meet a diversity of interests. 
It was not designed for the wants of the North, or the South, 
but was intended for the general benefit of both. It was built 
for the noblest structure of government that time has ever 
witnessed. It was intended for liberal minds, kind hearts, 
good Christians and loyal citizens. It was designed for free- 
dom of thought and speech, liberty of conscience, and the 
glory of God. It was conceived in the watchings, toils and 
straggles of the Eevolation, and was born amid the wisdom 
and prayers of our fathers. 

It contains no sentence that was not analyzed — no syllable 
that was not weighed. 



Every section was taken into its embrace — every interest 
was carefully cared for. 

To us it has descended, with all its magnificent proportions, 
but not unscared by the ruthless hands of demagogues. To 
us it remains to sustain and protect it, together with the glo- 
rious Union under it. 

We can trespass upon no fraction of this Constitution and 
do this. "We cannot sever the most minute shred from it, 
and not be recreant to our duty. 

Unconstitutional statutes should not exist in any event ; and 
I claim that it is highly proper at this, " the winter of our dis- 
content," that we should not only call for a convention of 
States, but that such a statute, touching fugitives from service 
or labor, should be repealed, and that the statute book of 
Ohio may be made pure, clean and entirely free from the 
smell of " personal liberty bills" or unconstitutional kidnapping 
laws, that we may the more earnestly and emphatically call. 

Especially proper is it that we should search carefully our 
books for laws of this description, when day after day seems 
to be weakening and snapping the ties of our Union in conse- 
quence partly of laws of this nature. 

Especially is it our duty to scan closely our own acts, be- 
fore charging disloyalty to their constitutional obligations 
upon any of our sister States, and making threats of "coer- 
cion" when we cannot say our own hands are clean. And 
just here, sir, I cannot but congratulate myself with others 
upon this floor, that we did not vote for the " coercion" con- 
tained in the eighth of the celebrated Ohio crisis resolutions. 
Gentlemen say that Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee laugh- 
ed at our power to coerce, and therefore they favor the imme- 
diate arming of the State. I can say to gentlemen, they need 
not go so far as Virginia to see themselves laughed at. Mem- 
bers on this floor laughed at them ; the State of Ohio laughed 
at them ; and Gen. Bierce — when he petitioned this body for 
the privilege of drilling the convicts in our Penitentiary — if 
he did not laugh, at least shed a very broad and bland smile 
upon them. 

But sir, whether we have " power and resources," or not» 



it illy became the dignity of the General Assembly of the 
State of Ohio to pledge them, for the purpose of enforcing 
constitutional obligations upon a sister State, when she herself 
is recreant to that Constitution upon the very point which 
has been instrumental in bringing us to the perilous condition 
we now occupy as a nation — to the very brink of dissolution. 
Yea, to the verge of that frowning precipice, beneath whose 
black brow lies that unfathomable abyss into whose depths 
the great Webster dared not permit himself to look. Upon 
the very crisis of affairs, at which the great commoner of 
Kentucky declared the strength of the government ought to 
be tested. Into that very position, of which the Father of 
hia Country warned us to beware, and where designing poli- 
ticians have placed us — parties characterized by geographical 
discriminations. 

Every patriot — every soul which has enjoyed the blessings 
and security of this happy form of government — cannot but 
feel a terrible alarm at the condition in which we behold the 
freest and mightiest nation upon which God's golden day has 
ever shone. 

It was said by a statesman, that there are some animals that 
live best in fire ; and there are some men who delight in heat, 
smoke, combustion — and even general conflagration. They 
do not follow the things which make for peace. They enjoy only 
controversy, contention and strife ; and I am afraid. Sir, there 
is some such material upon the floor of this House. Indeed, 
if we may judge from former occasions, we know there is. 
They never, I am fearful, will meet the issue fairly. They 
deal too much in imagination. They all think, work and act 
as if they expected to ride upon some popular wave to glory 
— to an elevated and distinguished political position. They 
seem afraid to kick against the dogmas of a party platform, 
for fear of being hurled back, or lost in some political whirl- 
pool. They catch, like a drowning man at a straw, for every 
bill or resolution which has about it the smack of preventing 
the return of a fugitive slave to his legal owner, and frown 
like a thunder-cloud if one is introduced to punish slave steal 
ing. Poor hopes for union, when such spirits rule. 



8 

" A time like this demands 
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands ; 
Men whom the lust of office does not kill ; 
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ; 
Men who possess opinion and a will; 
Men who have honor and who will not lie ; 
Men who can stand before a demagogue 
And damn his treach'rous flatteries without winking." 

A time like this demands that we should first do our duties 
before calling upon others to do theirs. I am speaking of the 
duty of Ohio in this crisis. Demands upon others to fulfill 
their constitutional obligations, come from us with but a bad 
grace while we have upon our statute-book a law inflicting a 
severe penalty upon a master who may retake his fugitive ser- 
vant — an owner who may recapture his fugitive slave. The 
owner has a constitutional right to retake his runaway slave ; 
and he can no more kidnap him than an owner can steal by 
retaking his stray horse upon the highway. He cannot kid- 
nap his fugitive slave from the State of Ohio, any more than 
he can kidnap him from one county to another in the State of 
Kentucky. Yet your law would punish him for exercising a 
right guaranteed to him by the Constitution. The fugitive is as 
much the property of his master, when he has escaped into 
Ohio, as he is in a slave-holding State. His escape does not 
change his relation to his owner. He is a slave still. And 
this arises from the second section of article four of the Con- 
stitution, which says: 

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the 
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any 
law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or 
labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom 
such service or labor may be due." 

By the common law this was not so, but when a slave escaped 
into a country or State where slavery did not exist, he was free, 
or, as the common law writers say, when his feet rest upon free 
territory, his shackles fall from him ; and this clause of the 
Constitution was placed there to meet the common law doctrine, 
and enable the slave holding States to retain their peculiar 
property in security. "Without it, thus understood, no consti- 



tution could ever have been made or union formed. It was a 
concession upon tlie part of tlie free and prospectively free 
States, and is now a binding obligation upon them, and one 
which they cannot violate by statutes of the nature of the second 
section of our present kidnapping law with impunity. To 
violate that clause of our Constitution, is to scar the venerable 
shield of our freedom and Union, as much as to violate any 
other clause. It is to weaken our strength, disband our unity, 
discourage conservatism, and destroy all hope. It is the oper- 
ation of " sapping and mining ;" it is battering against one of 
the corner-stones of the temple of American liberty ; it is, in 
short, abolitionism. 

Bat what are the provisions of this section ? 

It requires the person claiming a fugitive from service or 
labor to first take such fugitive "before the court, judge or 
commissioner of the proper circuit, district or county having 
jurisdiction according to the laws of the United States in cases 
of persons held to service or labor in any State escaping into 
this State, and there, according to the laws of the United States, 
establishing by proof his or their property in such person." 

Now, by what right or authority, I ask, does the State of 
Ohio undertake to thus retard the reprisal of a fugitive? 

Is it for the protection of the liberty of free persons ? Most 
certainly not, for the first section amply provides for this, while 
this second section, as I think, and shall preserttly show, en- 
dangers the liberty of free persons. 

Then if it does not operate, and is not for the protection 
of free persons, if it have any operation, (?) it is to delay or 
retard, and perhaps discharge from "service or labor," the 
fugitive who has escaped, and is thus in direct conflict with the 
Constitution, and ought to be repealed. 

But, it is asked, how is the owner to assert his "claim?" I 
answer : " It is asserted by his seizure of his property, and 
there is no power by any State to interfere with the possession 
acquired by the seizure or removal of the fugitive to the State 
whence he fled. This is all against our notions of right. We 
do not recognize the right of property in man," independent 
of the Constitution and laws of our country. But we cannot, as 



10 

loyal citizens, set up our private notions^ our " Mglier law " 
notions, against and contrary to the supreme law of the land- 
This would be violatiog plighted faith. We are in duty, in 
honor, and by every tie which binds government to citizen, and 
citizen to government, bound to obey the law. We give up a 
part of our natural rights, and support the government, and in 
return the government protects our persons and property; 
that is the contract between every citizen and his government, 
and neither are at liberty to violate. 

But to return. It not being in the power of Ohio to enact 
any statute interfering with the right of the owner to his slave, 
or in any manner changing their relation, and this second section, 
as admitted by a minority report of the committee on judiciary, 
upon this subject, not being for the protection oi free 'persons, 
it is certainly unconstitutional and void. 

What says that minority report ? "That to repeal this second 
section of the kidnapping act, and limit the provisions of the 
law to free persons only, would be giving extraordinary and 
dangerous powers to strangers." Now, I again ask, can there 
possibly be a statute for the protection, relief or defense of the 
liberty of any other than a free person ? 

Would not any other be utterly void, because necessarily 
for the relief of fugitives, and consequently unconstitutional. 

But it further says : " It would be giving strangers unlimited 
powers ovei*the liberties of persons found within the State, 
whom the State is under obligations to protect." What ! 
Under obligations to protect "the liberties of" fugitives from 
service or labor, who have escaped into this State ? 

I have already shown that the minority does not claim this sec- 
ond section to be for the protection of free persons ; then this is 
precisely what it means, if it means anything, and I respect- 
fully submit, whether the Constitution does not expressly deny 
the exercise of any such power by any State. No sir, you 
cannot enact a law for the protection of " the liberties " of fu- 
gitives from service. In the case of Prigg vs. 2he Slate of 
Pennsylvania, XVI Peters, 540, Mr. Justice Story decided: 
" The clause (of the constitution above quoted) manifestly 
contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right on 



11 

the part of the owner of the slave, which no State law or reg- 
ulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control or restrain. 
The slave is not to be discharged from service or labor in con- 
sequence of any State law or regulation. Now certainly, 
without indulging in any nicety of criticism upon words, it 
may fairly and reasonably be said, that any State law or reg- 
ulation which interrupts, limits, delays or postpones the right 
of the owner to the immediate possession of the slave, and the 
immediate command of his service and labor, operates pro 
tanto a discharge of the slave therefrom. 

The question can never be, how much the slave is dis- 
charged from, but whether he is discharged from any service 
by the natural or necessary operation of State law or State 
regulation. If this be so, then all the incidents to the right 
attach also ; the owner must therefore have the right to seize 
and repossess the slave, which the local laws of his own State 
confer upon him as property. Upon this ground the court 
have no hesitation in holding that, under the Constitution, the 
owner is clothed with authority, in every State of the Union, 
to seize and recapture his slave whenever he can do it without 
any breach of the peace or illegal violence. 

After referiing to the above case, the minority report, as if 
it had discovered a " nigger in the wood-pile," gravely and 
exultingly remarks : " But mark, the court does not affirm 
the right to take the alleged fugitive beyond the jurisdiction 
of the State where he is found, without proof and without pro- 
cess." 

The statute about which we are talking is a State law or 
regulation ; no State law or regulation, say the Supreme 
Court, can in any way qualify^ regulate^ control^ or restrain the 
unqualified rights on the part of the owner of the slave. 

Now, sir, does not this second section undertake to qualify ? 
Does it not undertake to regulate the unqualified right of the 
owner to reposses the slave? Does it not undertake to control 
or restrain from any service for any length of time, this right 
of the owner to the imniediate command of the service of his 
slave ? 

I am compelled to the belief that by the time the minor- 



12 

ity has answered these questions, there will not be left 
even a ghost of the " nigger in the wood-pile," and much less 
of the argument contained in that report. 

The doctrine that the relation of the slave to his master re- 
mains precisely the same after his escape as it existed in the 
State whence he left, is, says this minority report, " repugnant 
to every principle of international law." Now it is evident 
that this idea ignores the Constitution itself. 

Undoubtedly by the common law, as I have already said, 
every State possessed exclusive jurisdiction with reference to 
this kind of property, within its own limits, and, if a non- 
slaveholding State, it was under no obligations to return a 
fugitive, but on the contrary, he became absolutely a free man 
when he escaped into its jurisdiction. 

But if this were so under the Constitution, the supreme law 
of the land, why should the State of Ohio, whose "soil re- 
coils at the tread of a slave," undertake to enact a law by 
which "any person or persons claimed as fugitives," upon 
proper proof, may be forcibly taken back to slavery. 

The State, according to Mr. Justice Story, is not bound 
as such by the Constitution to carry out the provisions of the 
fugitive clause ; for, he says, it would be an unconstitutional 
exercise of the power of interpretation, to insist that the States 
are compelled to provide means to carry out its provisions. 

Most assuredly, if the argument of tlie minority report were 
true, its author would be far from giving the claimant of a 
fugitive from service or labor any such privilege as is found in 
this second section of our kidnapping law. 

Thus, he tacitly admits the falsity of his position, and utterly 
fails to argue down the plain provisions of the Constitution. 

But we have another Namby Pamby report upon our tables 
emanating from a select committee in that small, but respect- 
able body of gentlemen in the other end of the capitol, which 
presents the strange anomaly of denouncing all judicial opin- 
ions as any authority to control the action of this Legislature, 
and at the same time undertakes to support his report, for the 
indefinite postponement of a bill to repeal this same section, 
by reference to this same authority. 



13 

Comment is -unnecessary, and perhaps would not be proper 
here. • 

But granting the arguments were sound and the statute con- 
stitutional; still I maintain it should be repealed as dangerous 
to the liberties of free men. The free man is better protected 
without its provisions. The simple constitutional provisions 
of the section against kidnapping free persons, embodied in 
and improved by the majority report, is far better proti ction 
to those whom only ive can protect, than is found in this second 
section. 

Through the operation of this section, and the false oath of 
a witness before a commissioner, property may be so established 
in a free man, " of the manor born," that he could be hurried 
off into eternal slavery, the letter of your law complied with, 
and your prosecution for kidnapping a free person effectually 
barred. 

That the oath of a villain may thus enslave perpetually a 
free man, and that villain incur no penalty, when, without 
this section, no such thing could occur, but, on the contrary, 
the kidnapper would incur the penalty of a proper law, it but 
ill becomes the great free State of Ohio to retain such a law, 
such an inducement upon her statute book. 

There can be no question of the existence of this danger, 
and therefore the safety of freemen as well as the unconstitu- 
tionality of the law demands its immediate repeal. 

Though it does not in direct terms assail the final absolute 
right of the owner to reclaim and retake his fugitive slave, 
yet it is nothing more or less than one of those offensive per- 
sonal liberty bills in disguise. It is calculated to operate as a 
stumbling block in the way of honest claimants, surround 
them with troubles and difficulties, embarrass, perplex and de- 
feat their legal and constitutional rights. It is, as my friend 
from Hamilton (Mr. Flagg) remarked in his speech a few days 
since, fuel for northern fire-eaters. It is a tool for depraved 
abolition judges and perjured officials to work with. It is a 
rally call for mobs and jail breakers. 

Then, sir, we should repeal this statute, injustice, if not to 
the seceding States, to the border States-. It never should 



14 

have been placed among the laws of the State of Ohio. And 
with* how much better grace and cleaner hands could we ask 
a coavention of States. The border States demand its repeal. 
Virginia, the mother of Presidents, the mother of Ohio, calls 
upon her wayward daughter to be just — to abide faithfully the 
compromises of that bulwark of American liberty, the Con- 
stitution. Let not the call of the venerable and liberal Old 
Dominion go unheeded. 

We have responded to one call — the Peace Conference — by 
sending to meet her the recipient from negroes of a silver 
pitcher, written all over with abolitionism, personal liberty 
bills, negro suffrage, and stuffed full of the Chicago platform 
— an offensive messenger to a majority of this body — and now 
in the name of all that is right and just, let us not do farther 
injustice by asking her to meet us in convention, and still re- 
fusing to repeal this statute. 

The border States, all true to the Union, stretch forth the 
hand of friendship and love, asking nothing but that justice 
and equality which was theirs in the early infancy of the Re- 
public ; theirs when the fathers of the nation guided the ship 
of State; theirs to-day if justice be done, if honesty of heart 
and a proper feeling actuate the action of their northern sister 
States. 

It is nothing short of our duty to reapeal this statute, that 
we may place ourselves right in this great struggle between 
Union and Disunion. Then if destruction, desolation, dis- 
union and civil war must come, in our consciences we can say 
we did our whole duty. 

But, sir, I do not ask that you should rely upon my poor 
reasoning; turn to the laws of Congress, turn to the decisions 
of any court that has touched upon this question, turn to the 
Constitution itself, and tell me if they are not all unanimous 
in pronouncing the unconstitutionality of this statute. 

The Prigg case I have already cited. To this. Judge Mc- 
Lean dissented ; but in 1850, in the circuit court of the United 
States, in Indiana, in the case of Nbrris vs. Newton^ et al, 
found in Vol. IX., McLean's Reports, he fully assented to it as 



15 

binding, and recognized it as a part of the supreme law of tlie 
land. 

In Moore vs. the State of Illinois, XIV. Hoivard 20, Mr, Jus- 
tice Grier says: "The case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, pre- 
sented the following questions, which were decided b}' the 
court, and approved by this court : 

First — That under and in virtue of the Constitution of the 
United States, the owner of a slave is clothed with entire 
authority to seize and recapture his slave whenever he can do 
it without illegal violence, or a breach of the peace. 

Second — That any State law or regulation which interrupts, 
impedes, limits, embarrasses, delays, or postpones the right of 
the owner to the immediate possession of the slave and the 
immediate command of his services is void." 

In our own State, under a statute of 1831, in effect precisely 
the same as this one under consideration ; the Supreme Court 
on the circuit, in Richardson vs. Bebee, found in Law Eeporter, 
Vol. IX., 818, held and decided : " The Constitution and Laws 
of the United States recognize slavery, and protect the owner 
in the enjoyment of this species of property." And further 
said: "In the case of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. 
Prigg, the Supreme Court of the United States have decided 
that the owner of a slave, either by himself or agent, may 
pursue, arrest and return him to the State from whence he 
fled, without the aid of the State authority, and that all State 
legislation which interferes with, or embarasses such arrest, 
is unconstitutional and void," 

In Anderson vs. Poindcxter, et al., VI. 0. S. Reports, 622, our 
Supreme Court most certainly approve the Prigg case, as they 
also did in the case of remanding the prisoners in the cel- 
ebrated Langston Habeas Corpus case, in IX., 0. S. Reps., 78. 

What more authority do we need ? Can there longer be a 
doubt as to the unconstitutionality of this statute ! Can there 
be any question as to our duty in regard to it ! 

But a fierce howl comes up from abolitionism, mingled with 
coercionism against its appeal : "It will appear like concession, 
it will be yielding to the South, it will be deserting the high 



16 

stand we have taken, it will be lowering the standard of our 
politics." 

Worse, far worse blind and more obstinate, than the man 
who contended that the horse was sixteen feet high, because 
he had said so, for it was not them but Giddings who said it 
was treason to desert the Chicago platform, and an inflexible 
determination seems to possess them to stand or fall bj what 
he says. 

Or perhaps, like the boy up the old man's apple-tree, who 
peremptorily refused to come down upon request, and until he 
was heartily pelted with stones, when he was glad to come 
down- and beg the old man's pardon. 

Gentlemen, you must come down from your higher law, you 
must humble yourselves before the Constitution and laws of 
our common country, and beg their pardon. 

Already is a Southern Confederacy in operation. They 
have inaugurated their President, and are rapidly preparing 
for a permanent, independent government. They do not want 
war, but they do want a peaceful dissolution — a separation the 
cotton States seem determined to have at all hazards, actuated, 
as they claim, by a desire to preserve rights denied them by 
the North. 

We want neither — we deprecate either. We want the Union 
of these States preserved. We want that glorious old banner, 
which has never been unfarled but to victory, to descend to 
generations yet unborn, unsullied and untorn. It will not 
answer the purpose to stand upon party platforms now. Times 
like these demand that all parties should flock to the standard 
of the Union ; that we should, as one man, aim at that high 
justice which gave us our Constitution ; that there should not 
be a dissenting voice to the repeal of all unconstitutional laws, 
touching the pandora's box of all our dissensions, nor to the 
passage of these or similar resolutions in every Union State, 
and peace again may unfold her wings, and the Union again 
rest upon that old ark of safety, which has descended to us 
through many strifes and storms, the Constitution. 



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